


in the aftermath of it all

by maxapple



Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Gen, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), oof, this got pretty dark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-20
Updated: 2018-05-20
Packaged: 2019-05-09 12:29:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14716065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maxapple/pseuds/maxapple
Summary: After infinity war, after Thanos, everything falls apart.





	in the aftermath of it all

After.  
After, Tony shakes.   
Him and Nebula work out a tentative truce and take Quill’s ship. Tony tries not to look around it-- he can’t bear to see the remnants of the lost- and they make it back to Earth.  
Earth, which is. In chaos. Everything is gone. Looted, destroyed. Things are burnt. New York is practically in ruins. 

Tony holes himself up in one of his few safe buildings left--- a sad shadow of Avengers Tower--- and wallows in misery. His hands shake perpetually. When he wakes-- he’d passed out soon after his return to Earth-- he huddles in a corner for two days, shaking. He cannot work. He can’t do anything.   
He tries and fails to sleep, and misses desperately the quiet numbness of unconsciousness. All he can see is Peter, behind his eyes every time he closes them. Sometimes it’s exactly what happened, down to the look in Peter’s eyes.  
He sees him stagger into Tony, and hears it, over and over and over until it nearly drives him mad.  
“I don’t want to go. I don’t want to go.”   
Sometimes it changes, and there is Peter, dissolving in his hands.   
“This is your fault,” He says. “This was you.”   
Tony agrees with him.  
A week after he returns to Earth-- he doesn’t know where Pepper, or Steve, or Bruce or Nebula are and he doesn’t want to (he’s too scared of what he’ll find)-- he gets to work. He uses the gloves from his suit to steady his hands.

Steve does not have time to mourn. He doesn’t have time to think. He trades strong words with Okoye, who has filled the role of Wakanda’s ruler because of her years of standing at the king’s side, and wins. Wakanda becomes a pillar of hope in a world burning down.  
As T’Challa’s (he can’t think about him, he can’t, he’s a soldier and he has a job to do) homeland becomes a refugee center, a hospital for a broken Earth, Steve flies back to Manhattan.   
Fury is gone. SHIELD- what remains of it- is in ruins. Him and Nat find everyone who is alive-- who is able to help, who isn’t too broken (or dead, Steve thinks, and shoves it to the back of his mind)-- to work on crowd control.  
They pick up bits and pieces, save what they can, who they can. They take back Manhattan from chaos inch by inch, calm the rioters, do what they can to save everyone left over from what they’ve started calling the Day of Reckoning. Steve finds it apt, but cliche.  
Steve chooses not to explain what he knows, and works in the shadows.   
What is left of the US government, clinging to bureaucracy, comes for him. The men they send take one look at him- Steve, who is broken and dark and not at all the Captain America they expected- and flee the moment he activates the Wakandan shield.   
Nat is better at this than him, but neither of them are good at managing. They see everyone in their dreams.  
Every time Bucky appears in his mind-- “Steve,” he says, accepting but horrified, and it echoes in his ears every time he wakes up soaked in cold sweat-- every time Sam, T’Challa, all of them appear behind his eyes, something inside him breaks a little more, tugs at his composure until he can barely keep up the mask.

Immediately after, suicide rates around the world go up exponentially. Everyone’s lost someone-- everyone is torn and wracked by grief. Within a week, Steve and Natasha have to talk so many people off ledges they lose count.  
Tony tries, himself. He does, twice. The first time, FRIDAY pulls up Peter’s documentary and lets it play until Tony sets the knife down with shaking hands. The second time, Steve gets there just in time, grabs him and hauls him away from the roof using the voice he uses for wounded birds and strong, gentle hands even as Tony tries desperately to shove him away. He runs out of energy and slumps, sobbing, against Steve’s chest. Natasha looks away.

Thor is off, somewhere, with Rocket, who insists he’s only come because he has nothing better to do. He’d recovered Loki and Heimdall’s bodies, given them the best semblance of an Asgardian funeral he could manage, and vanished without a trace. Off in space, he does everything he can to exact some semblance of vengeance, mercilessly assassinating anyone who has had dealings with Thanos, extracting what little information any of them have about Thanos’s location. He’s about to burn a small encampment of unwilling followers to the ground when his head suddenly clears, clouds of rage parting quietly as he realizes his own actions. He drops the torch, stamps it out, and uses the Bifrost to return to Earth. He spends a month in Iceland, mourning, and then begins to search for the remnants of the Avengers.

 

When the dust clears, everything is white. As Peter adjusts to suddenly-- being-- again, his vision fades in, and he hears his name, being screamed over the rest of people calling for their friends and family as half the population blinks back into existence.   
And then there’s Tony, bruised and bloodied and pulling him into his arms.   
Peter can remember clutching Tony as he faded away-- it’s like no time passed at all.   
Tony grabs him, hauls him into a bone-crushing hug, and Peter- confused but relieved- clutches him back before realizing, suddenly: Tony is crying.   
“Mr. Stark?” He asks, hesitantly, pulling back. “What happened?”  
Tony smiles, takes a deep breath.   
“We won, kiddo. We won.”


End file.
